Enlightenment and Change

Reviews / Votes

Enlightenment and Change: Scotland, 1746--1832. By Bruce P. Lenman. Edinburgh University Press. 2009. vii + 280pp. GBP19.99. The 1981 edition of this book appeared under a slightly different title, Integration, Enlightenment, and Industrialisation. The new revised text takes into account scholarship on the period in question that has appeared during the subsequent quarter century, although readers of the earlier version will recognize much. Sections have been added, on women for instance, and on labour and radicalism in the period from around 1819 to 1824, while a separate chapter is now devoted to Scotland and the American Revolution. The book closes with a reflective conclusion on the nature and impact, in Scotland, of the Enlightenment. The effect of the fresh material on the book is mixed: the chapter on Scotland and the American Revolution is exceptionally good -- factually sound, forceful and penetrating yet also finely nuanced, a mini master-class in how to write gripping history. Less convincing is the section on women (who would have been better incorporated into the text rather than singled out for special treatment), which seems to overlook the critically important role females and young people played in the first phase of Scottish industrialization, and underplays their political significance -- certainly at local level, in meal riots and religious protest. This, however, is in keeping with Lenman's portrayal of a rock-solid social structure in Scotland, whose elite groups were little troubled by the people below, although, as Lenman concedes in his extended chapters on the early nineteenth century, pressures were growing, and power in Scotland was transferring from the landed classes to the captains of industry and the cities. Accordingly, even if Lenman is explicit in his denial of a revolutionary threat in Scotland (p. 219), he ends the book by commenting that 1832 'was a good year for Walter Scott [alarmed by the demise of rural paternalism and the growth of manufacturing towns] to die' (p. 259). It is top-down history, but of the best sort. Lenman is at home with the aristocrats, politicians and intellectuals of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotland, whose qualities and achievements he admires, while at the same time delighting in reporting their foibles. The book bristles with facts, which pour out at a breathless pace, along with Lenman's assessments and insights. Most of the time this is persuasive, but some of the author's quick-fire assertions require qualification. True, 'the army was not usually visible' (p. 15) in eighteenth-century Scotland, yet it was used to brutal effect in the Highlands in the drawn-out aftermath of Culloden, and prior 386 REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES A(c) 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation A(c) 2010 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing. to that had been called upon with astonishing frequency by customs officers and magistrates in places overwhelmed by smuggler-supporting mobs. There are also omissions. Urban Scotland is largely ignored -- certainly as a discrete topic -- even though, as Lenman himself points out (pp. 5--6), a sizeable minority of Scots were town dwellers by 1832. These, however, are minor quibbles. This is a book which has stood the test of time. In its revised format it should continue as a first point of call for any reader interested in Scotland during the country's golden age. University of Dundee CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY -- Christopher Whatley History: The Journal of the Historical Association Fascinating and relevant. Scottish Review of Books The book bristles with facts, which pour out at a breathless pace, along with Lenman's assessments and insights. -- Christopher A. Whatley History: The Journal of the Historical Association Enlightenment and Change: Scotland, 1746--1832. By Bruce P. Lenman. Edinburgh University Press. 2009. vii + 280pp. GBP19.99. The 1981 edition of this book appeared under a slightly different title, Integration, Enlightenment, and Industrialisation. The new revised text takes into account scholarship on the period in question that has appeared during the subsequent quarter century, although readers of the earlier version will recognize much. Sections have been added, on women for instance, and on labour and radicalism in the period from around 1819 to 1824, while a separate chapter is now devoted to Scotland and the American Revolution. The book closes with a reflective conclusion on the nature and impact, in Scotland, of the Enlightenment. The effect of the fresh material on the book is mixed: the chapter on Scotland and the American Revolution is exceptionally good -- factually sound, forceful and penetrating yet also finely nuanced, a mini master-class in how to write gripping history. Less convincing is the section on women (who would have been better incorporated into the text rather than singled out for special treatment), which seems to overlook the critically important role females and young people played in the first phase of Scottish industrialization, and underplays their political significance -- certainly at local level, in meal riots and religious protest. This, however, is in keeping with Lenman's portrayal of a rock-solid social structure in Scotland, whose elite groups were little troubled by the people below, although, as Lenman concedes in his extended chapters on the early nineteenth century, pressures were growing, and power in Scotland was transferring from the landed classes to the captains of industry and the cities. Accordingly, even if Lenman is explicit in his denial of a revolutionary threat in Scotland (p. 219), he ends the book by commenting that 1832 'was a good year for Walter Scott [alarmed by the demise of rural paternalism and the growth of manufacturing towns] to die' (p. 259). It is top-down history, but of the best sort. Lenman is at home with the aristocrats, politicians and intellectuals of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotland, whose qualities and achievements he admires, while at the same time delighting in reporting their foibles. The book bristles with facts, which pour out at a breathless pace, along with Lenman's assessments and insights. Most of the time this is persuasive, but some of the author's quick-fire assertions require qualification. True, 'the army was not usually visible' (p. 15) in eighteenth-century Scotland, yet it was used to brutal effect in the Highlands in the drawn-out aftermath of Culloden, and prior 386 REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES A(c) 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation A(c) 2010 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing. to that had been called upon with astonishing frequency by customs officers and magistrates in places overwhelmed by smuggler-supporting mobs. There are also omissions. Urban Scotland is largely ignored -- certainly as a discrete topic -- even though, as Lenman himself points out (pp. 5--6), a sizeable minority of Scots were town dwellers by 1832. These, however, are minor quibbles. This is a book which has stood the test of time. In its revised format it should continue as a first point of call for any reader interested in Scotland during the country's golden age. University of Dundee CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY Fascinating and relevant. The book bristles with facts, which pour out at a breathless pace, along with Lenman's assessments and insights.